One pound of inference, no more, no less. No humbug, no cant, but only inference. This task done, and he would go free.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Earth Hour - Nonsense on Stilts

Can there be an event more thoroughly deserving of scorn and derision than Earth Hour? This is the time when sanctimonious hairshirt poseurs deign to turn off their lights for an hour, in order to do... well, I never quite figured out what. Protest consumerism, or show solidarity with the environment, or conspicuously show off their concern for Gaia, something. Whatever it's meant to be about, I'd basically just written it off as a stupid token gesture.

"The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity....

I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on."

Spot on. This is the most stirring defense of Julian Simon economics that I've read in recent times, but one that views human progress as something that needs defending, rather than something inevitable.

If the name Ross McKitrick sounds familiar, it's because he was one of the two authors (along with Steve McIntyre) who pointed out that the hockey stick graph was based on Michael Mann not knowing how to do principal components analysis. Michael Mann, you may recall, is the guy who was implicated in the Climate-gate controversy, for using his 'trick' to 'hide the decline' in temperatures, thereby adding bad faith to bad statistics.

Ross McKitrick, you are hereby inducted into the Shylock Holmes Order of Guys Who Kick Some Serious Ass.